Production and/or reserves of heavy crude oils, extra heavy crude oils, oil sands and/or bitumens, have been growing during the years in countries such as Canada, Colombia, Venezuela, Kuwait, and Russia. In this document, the heavy crude oils, extra heavy crude oils, oil sands and/or bitumens, are referred to, collectively or individually, as Heavy Feedstocks.
Regardless of the method used to produce heavy feedstocks, in most of the cases, there is a need to blend diluent (lighter hydrocarbon(s)) with the heavy feedstocks for treatment and transportation. In this document, the blend between diluent and heavy feedstocks, will be referred to as the blend (which includes blends such as dilbit, synbit, railbit, etc.
Once the blend meets the required specifications, it is ready for commercialization. However, the transportation of the blend to the market is expensive because the diluent has to be purchased and transported from its source to the oil fields, and then transported as part of the blend to the destination. All the cost involved in this process plus any price differential is referred to as diluent cost .
One option to eliminate or reduce the diluent cost, is upgrading the heavy feedstocks to produce a high quality synthetic crude oil, and recovering and returning the diluent to the oil field. However, building an upgrader has been difficult to justify lately due to the high capital investment, long execution time and its economic feasibility.
For transportation, the heavy feedstocks, generally require an adjustment on quality to increase the API gravity and reduce the viscosity. The options used today to adjust (if needed) the qualities of the heavy feedstocks include:                Using Diluent as a blendstock to blend it with the heavy feedstocks and meet the product specifications established to transport the blend via pipelines, trucks, rail cars, barges and/or ships. Despite the high transportation cost, it is the most popular option to date due to its ease of execution and cost. There are some existing technologies and others under study and development to reduce the diluent cost for transportation of heavy feedstocks via pipelines such as JetShear™ Technology and other technologies for bitumen transportation.        Upgrading the heavy feedstocks trough deep conversion units (i.e. delayed coker, fluidcoker, LC Fining, H-Oil, Uniflex, HDH, etc.) to obtain a product known as Syncrude, which can be transported via pipelines trucks, railcars, barges and or ships. This option is expensive and economically unfeasible at today's oil prices, yet it has to be monitored continuosly due to the benefits it can provide at high differential prices between light crude oil and the heavy feedstocks. There are several commercial technologies already in operation and others under development to upgrade the heavy feedstocks.        Reduction of the diluent content as blendstock, to reduce the volume of diluent to be transported to the markets and the volume of diluent imported. The blend with lower volume of diluent has been used in few cases to transport the heavy feedstocks from Canada to the U.S.A using heated railcars. This is referred to as railbit. Given the product viscosity it cannot be transported via pipelines. Consequently, this option is more expensive than the first option above, and as of today there are not enough infrastructures to handle this type of product.        
In Canada, the transportation of raw product (without or with minimum diluent) by rail is under consideration to compete in cost with the transportation via pipeline of the blend. However, the problem is that this option requires building a lot more infrastructure than the railbit case, and testing is needed to confirm its viability before it could be commercially used .
Given these alternatives, it becomes clear that the transport of the blend creates the following problems:                1. High transportation cost because of the diluent cost        2. Apportionment of the pipelines due to the high volumes needed to be transported        3. Refinery limitations to process the blend and heavy feedstocks price reductions, affecting the production companies        
To remedy the apportionment of the pipelines, the oil production companies decided to use railcars. This alternative increases transportation cost and require new investments to build infrastructure such as railcars, loading and unloading terminals, etc.
In addition to the high transportation cost of the blend, the high content of light products (diluent) causes difficulties in the atmospheric towers of the refineries due to the handling of high volumes of light hydrocarbons. Furthermore, the diluent recovered in the refineries results in a surplus product that the majority of the refineries do not need.
As a result of these restrictions, there is a need to find a solution to reduce the volume of the blend (by reduction or elimination of diluent), to reduce transportation cost, allow the refiners to maximize processing of heavy feedstocks and reduce the pressure on the producers for additional price discount.
Unfortunately, none of the transportation options currently in use or under development resolve economically (at today's crude oil prices) the problems of: (1) importing diluent, (2) decreasing transportation cost, (3) allowing optimization of the refineries, and in some cases (4) reaching new markets (due to limited infrastructure). To mitigate these problems, we propose what we refer to as Solid Residue Separation, which additionally adds new benefits in the supply chain of hydrocarbons
Any heavy feedstock can produce a vacuum residue which behaves as a solid without sticking or clumping during manufacturing, storage and transportation.
Depending of the characteristics of the heavy feedstocks, the temperature in which each particular vacuum residue behaves as a solid can vary and it can be within a range from the lowest temperature in earth up to temperatures close to 100 degrees centigrade. Then, for each heavy feedstock selected is necessary to determine the temperature that produce a Solid Residue Separation with a solid behavior.
Ideally, the heavy feedstock will produce a Solid Residue Separation, which maintains the solid behavior at a maximum temperature that can be encountered at: (a) the origin where the product is manufactured; (b) the intermediate or final destination where the product is further processed and/or blended; (c) any location where the product is stored; and (d) the temperatures and conditions in the transportation route. It is recommended to add a reasonable safety factor in the temperature at each location to assure the behavior of the Solid Residue Separation as a solid in any weather condition. This would, for instance, foster better opportunities during the winter months in some cases, as more volume of diluent is saved and also a lower temperature is needed for the Solid Residue Separation to behave as a solid. Conversely, during the summer months lower diluent volumes savings will be achieved and the required temperature for the product to ensure it behaves as solid will be higher.
Also depending of the crude oil prices, the producer can choose to export only the liquid material and store the Solid Residue Separation until the economics are favorable to export it.
If the quality of the Solid Residue Separation produced, behaves as a solid at the origin of manufacturing during all year round, but during some months of the year the temperature of the product to behave as solid is lower than the temperatures of the transportation and/or storage at the final destination, the manufacturer can store the Solid Residue Separation produced during these months of the year and sell it later when the conditions and economics are appropriate.
To produce the Solid Residue Separation, a heavy vacuum gasoil with a deep cut point (without cracking the material) should be produced in the vacuum distillation tower .
To determine if a specific crude oil, oil sand or bitumen could produce Solid Residue Separation that behave as solid at a specific temperature, laboratory tests are required to determine properties as the softening point, penetration, etc. For example if the value of the softening point is high enough i.e., having a softening point between 60 degrees to 200° C. (greater or equal to 60 degrees Centigrade at a TBP cut point of 530 degrees Centigrade or above i.e., 530-620° C.), and/or the penetration at 25 degrees centigrade of the product with a TBP cut point of 530 degrees Centigrade or above, is lower than 40 (mm/10), then the heavy crude oil, extra heavy crude oil, bitumen and/or oil sand has a potential to be used as a source of Solid Residue Separation.
Additional laboratory analysis should include test of the behavior of the product at different temperatures and conditions to determine if the product works satisfactorily at a desired temperature.
After a thorough search of articles, papers and patents related with the production of solid hydrocarbons, information about their manufacturing for use in cement kilns, the steel industry and in the utility industries, were found.
However, production of Solid Residue Separation as a solution to lower the transportation cost of Heavy Feedstocks, the elimination or reduction of diluent imports, its processing in refineries and/or its blending with other hydrocarbons, could not be found anywhere.
As an example of the above statement, in a study prepared by Jacobs Consultancy for Alberta Innovates—Energy and Environmental and published in October 2012, a panel of expert proposed 55 ideas during a brainstorm session and no one mentioned into this set of ideas the possibility to produce Solid Residue Separation or equivalent.